The gifts of February in Northern Michigan come in tiny, tiny packages: a momentary sight of a deer before she heads back down to the creek where the snow is less deep and the temperatures are just a little warmer; a few snow fleas, just a few, to remind me that there is, indeed, life within all this stillness; a few more seconds of light each day; a glimpse of the sun over the tree tops at the southern end of my property before it dips again below the tree line; a few minutes more each week when the sky is cloudless. The world around my home is locked up, frozen. So each tiny change feels monumental.
Once spring and summer arrive, my senses will be overloaded. I’ll take in more and therefore probably notice less. So now, I relish noticing the little things. In February, it feels luxurious to take in the tidbits, the morsels, doled out in my frozen world. I enjoy being reminded that the small things in life are as important as the bigger events.
So here are just a few tidbits from my February appreciation list:
• Fluffy warm socks, size BIG.
• A movie at a friend's house, in PJ's of course.
• The wonder of coming upon another’s snowshoe tracks deep in ‘my’ woods.
• Skipping around the house to my favorite songs.
• Wood fires.
• A good Manhattan, up!
• Sighting a downy, hairy, red-headed, red-bellied and pileated woodpecker in one day.
• The smell of sunflower seeds and cracked corn as I scoop the critter food into my bucket.
• My pair of old dogs.
• Northern Pike and Walleye from the freezer.
• Venison from the freezer.
• Moose from the freezer.
• Morel mushrooms from the freezer.
• Huckleberries from the freezer.
• Novels so rich they take the whole month to read.
• Ordering my annual supply of fishing lures from Lucky Strike Bait Works.
• Organizing the tackle box.
• Down in all forms (mittens, vests, coats and douvets).
• And…Lots of berry pies!
Happy Valentine's Day, All! Here's to letting the tidbits fill you up!
“When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmmm, boy.” ~ Jack Handy
Happy Holidays, My Friends!
Our winter white stuff has been falling, falling, and falling. My yard probably has about 4 feet of snow and there seems no end to it. I've already shoveled the roof once. Today I go for round two. If these blog entries cease, come find me. Bring shovels!
Relax. This article is not about the stock market, housing prices, the auto industry or any one of the other related 2008 news stories. I'm not standing on any stump or soapbox. In fact, I'm much higher. I'm on the roof.
This winter thus far has brought one very big, delightful surprise, better than any Christmas present I could have imagined. In the middle of more snow than we've seen in many, many winters I've also taken delivery of a childhood dream. I've got a new game called “Jumping off the Roof,” and I'm going to do it as many time as I possibly can while we've still got snow. My ladder is propped permanently against the front of the house. At a moments notice, I can make a quick climb, spread my arms wide, and let go, just like those thousands of times I imagined leaping from the roof as a child.
The freefalls I'm indulging in this month are way beyond the ego and its censors. They are beyond the structures we create to contain things. They are intuitive, imaginative, whimsical, with just the right touch of childishness. My body and imaginations have taken flight.
Now I’d be fibbing if I told you I have a clue about what I will do with this December 2008 experience, if anything. I can barely make it into a sensible blog article. But oh, my freefall antics have broken through some internal barriers, inhibitions, and worst-case scenarios that have been building for awhile, allowing the child in me to bubble to the surface.
I bet this childhood dream of taking flight from the roof is pretty common. It seems to have sort of a Peter Pan or Mary Poppins flavor to it. If as a child you had similar longings of jumping off the roof and flying, come on over. I've got soft landings, at least until the snow melts. Dreams can come true.
"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." ~Lewis Carroll
Happy Thanksgiving All!
We've got snow; lots of snow. I actually planned to write this little earlier but I've been enjoying time with stranded friends instead. Here in the north, we experience November as the bridge between fall and winter, the space between chatter and silence, that place where activity comes to a halt and takes a deep sigh.
This week, just when my friends from the North decided to stop in for a quick overnight on their way to warmer southern climates, winter decided to take a direct hit. My sweet friend, Madelenine, left the following behind when Mother Nature stopped to catch her breath and let them make their escape. I'll see you in the Spring on your way north again, Madeleine, Richard, Nicole and Reg. Bon Voyage!
“In wilderness is the preservation of the world.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
Stranded by Madeleine Beaupré
Well, we made it as far as Fife Lake, Michigan.
The first leg of our trip before the Alberta clipper hit.
Mother Nature had mischievously planned quite a shenanigan
We did arrive safely at Deb’s—But then that wasn't it.
We got snowed into her ample back yard.
Doing nothing but talking and cheering and feasting.
Becoming more ample ourselves—
She's a great hostess so it wasn't hard!
Then curled up comfortably in Deb's cushy chair,
Drinking in the laughter, the ribbing, the conversation,
I was inspired to jot down some unpolished thoughts,
Plucked from mid-air:
Thank You—A Free-Verse Outpouring
Wow—If I ever get stranded, what better place?
Surrounded by the familiar faces of family
grouped around Deb's home fires.
Igniting informal debates, chuckles then post-dinner
wine and rapid witty repartee.
Thank You, Fate,
for the coincidences you orchestrate.
Look out any window. What do you see,
through the delicate veil
of a windless, densely falling snow?
A babbling brook, a Winter-scape
straight out of a school text book.
A magical scene,
complete with overhanging snow-laden boughs
so muted and breath-taking, it leaves me in awe.
Thank You, Mother Earth,
for providing this oasis of gentleness.
Is this your way of saying I Love You, to us?
Well then,
Thank You once more!
We love you too!
Unbelievably, as if to confirm my thoughts,
she sends a lone, fragile fawn
down to drink from the stream!
How amazing is that?
It moves closer to the window—
we can see it clearly.
It raises its beautiful head,
and gazes right at us with those
soft doe-eyes, unafraid
before wandering away slowly,
taking a sip here, chewing on a twig there.
Again, Thank You!
For the gift of this simple pleasure of this sighting.
The new season is suddenly upon us.
The snow falls steadily overnight, gently
piling itself onto all surfaces in high, rounded mounds,
bestowing onto familiar objects an
otherworldly appearance.
But—another world it is!
A world of calm, and quietude,
and looking inward.
And forcibly slowing down all the
madness and the rush,
so that one may pause and say…
Thank You
for all this.
And everything else we neglect
to stop for a moment and appreciate.
"The only real voyage consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes; in seeing the universe through the eyes of another, one hundred others—in seeing the hundred universes that each of them sees.” ~Marcel Proust
We're getting hard frosts now. In the morning, the ground and my garden are icy white. When the sun finally makes it up above the tree tops, leaves fall in torrents as the heat hits those ice-cold branches and the trees lose their grip on the summer canopy.
"Time is like a handful of sand - the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers"
These days, there is not much space outside of the time I spend with my mother. So I have found when I do not hand over my writing to others, what I am compelled to write about becomes an extension of my conversations and reflections with Mom. The two of us are spending a lot of time looking back. That's where she's most comfortable. The farther back we go, the better her memory. Ask her about an event or person in her childhood and you'll get minute details. Ask her what she had for lunch the minute she finished the last morsel, and you'll get a shrug.
Mom grew up on the Atlantic Ocean just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Her summers were spent with family on Cape Cod. Her only move was to Michigan and the shores of a much smaller body of water but still huge in its own right, Lake Michigan. This is where Mom has spent the last 68 years of her life and where I grew up.
The other day we talked about spending so much of one's life on or near a beach. There are many wonderful and interesting things about beach life. Watching wildlife, digging clams, and flying kites have been some of our favorites. But in our conversation, Mom seemed to want to focus on sand. We agreed that our beach days will always be a part of us and will forever be most defined by sand. Oh, such a tiny thing for such a long life!
We've concluded that our hair, toes, belly buttons and many other unmentionable crevices will always contain at least a few grains of sand. A total cleaning is not possible. We'll both die with sand in some crack. Likewise, we'll forever have sand in our bed.
We are still astounded at how possessions can get lost for a long, long time as the sand shifts and inches forward and backward with the wind and the waves. And that often, with that same shifting, the treasures are unearthed and things long lost return. I remember that vividly with a stuffed toy cat that disappeared for a good three months, only to return with no more damage than need of a good washing.
We agreed that sleeping on the sand makes the best nap. Long after the day has cooled, that patch of sand is still quite warm having absorbed the sun all day. Warm sand, properly piled and molded, will allow for rest so deep you'll drool in your sleep and wake with sand plastered to the side of your face.
We sighed as we remembered the experience of standing at the water's edge and wiggling our feet in the sand. Better than any foot massage we've ever had, our feet emerged baby fresh and buffed.
I serve up this reflection about sand as an opportunity for you to remember the environment that forever defines you. What simple geography has played a big role in defining who you are today? Prairie grasses, a cool and quite pine forest, rocks, an orchard, a pasture? Search for that place in your own life journey. Your eternity is as simple as a grain of sand. I’d love to hear your reflections as you discover your own sands of time.
“To see a world in a grain of sand
And Heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of you hand
And eternity in an hour.”
Auguries of Innocence ~William Blake
“They dined on mince and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon.”
~Edward Lear
Oh, sacred September, one of my all time favorite months. Just the right balance of warmth and crispness, don't you think?
I'm messin' about in the garden these days. I've decided to pull up all the iris and day lilies. They need to be separated and replanted, with leftovers going to a couple of good friends. It may be the wrong time of year for digging up garden flowers for all I know. My gardening knowledge is very tiny, indeed. I know a lot about sitting, resting, musing and enjoying my garden...or a lake...or a tree...or even a rock for that matter. Its just one of the many ways I notice all the abundance that is around me. So if you see my digging and replanting this time of year as a gardening mistake, keep it to yourself please. I'm on a roll.
It was only a year ago, last October, when I wrote about The Speed of Life. The article was inspired by a sign that read: "Life is too short to wear matching socks." From there, I created my own "Life is Too Short" list. And top on my list was "Life is too short to mow the lawn." My friend, Madeleine, has taken this sentiment to a judicial, logical, and immaculate RANT. Mad takes it to the extreme. She not only says life is too short to mow the lawn, she argues that life is too short to have a lawn at all! I so enjoy getting Mad's occasional rants in my email inbox. This one I just had to share with you all. It's a great time of year, as we put our gardens and yards to rest, to reflect on just how much time and energy we have and where we care to spend it.
The more time I find for my favorite leisures, the more grounded I become. I'm amazed and impressed with my ability and desire to do little and, consequently, more.
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." ~Annie Dillard
DOWN WITH LAWNS! by Madeleine Beaupré
What is it with this North-American obsession, anyway? Even a pure, dope-free virgin lawn requires SO much TLC from its owners, one has to wonder what exactly is it giving in return? One of my personal pet peeves is The Moocher. What has that got to do with lawns, you ask? Well, lawns are obviously big time moochers! Taking, taking, taking - always taking! And what does one get in return? Well, it does look pretty, does it not? Pretty, alright. Pretty useless, is what I say! Unless your kids are rolling in it from dawn to dusk. And, in that case, it had better be chemical-free, or your offspring will soon be of the glow-in-the-dark variety.
Now is the time to plan next year's yard landscaping modifications! And if you ask me, less is best when it comes to lawns! Please don't quote the line: "But its respiration cycle provides us with precious oxygen!" Because trees, shrubs, other plants and countless other ground covers can do that just as well, if not better! And, if you're like many of us, in need of some fresh air and therapeutic time while you tend to the yard, why not plant something you can actually use? Like...veggies! Yes, apparently this trend is truly catching on! Edible landscaping - now THAT is putting your money where your mouth is! Many vegetable plants are quite attractive, and you can literally reap what you sow!
Did you know that in North America, combined yearly lawn maintenance costs have soared to the equivalent of the total federal budgets of some third-world countries!!! To beef up my admittedly biased, arguably argumentative arguments, I took to the Net. While perusing various websites of a turfy nature, both pro and con, I came across acres of green information. Some was familiar (i.e., my hero, David Suzuki), but tons of soddy stuff I didn't even fathom, and much was just plain shocking, such as the following tidbit. I could not re-locate the original BNet article pertaining to one of my side notes, but here, in a nutshell, is the following projection: by the year 2010 (within the next year-and-a-half), in the U.S. alone, lawn maintenance costs will exceed $9 Billion. That's million with a "B", ladies and gentlemen.
It gives us a glimmer of hope to see legislation finally being enacted in many areas, amending laws to ban the use of wasteful water usage and of gardening chemicals for the sake of yard cosmetics. Finally. Was it maybe partly due to the fact that dogs, cats and little kids can't read those tiny flags they stick in lawns as warnings, after they spray them with known carcinogens?
However, our town, and too many others, still maintain and enforce by-laws which dictate the maximum height of your grass, AND require you to prevent it from drying out, under threat of stiff fines! Allowances are not often made for water shortages, except for the odd/even watering rule. If you're stuck on grass, reduce the size of the sodded area in your yard, replacing some of it with attractive alternative landscaping. At the very least, switch to healthier, more earth-friendly weeding and bug control methods. Many chemical-free products and techniques are now widely promoted, thanks to the efforts of devoted environmental activists, as well as more health conscious folks.
The photo is that of a neighbour's yard, which I have wistfully admired since its creation. It is an eye-pleasing blend of different features which I find quite striking. Note the strategic compromise of the aesthetic and the environmental:
Native prairie grasses, left long and willowy, can be admired swaying in the breeze. Rock gardens are a favourite of mine, for obvious reasons. And, if you must have lawn, then counterbalance that flat, unnatural view with low-maintenance plants indigenous to your climate zone. Shrubs are nice. And, of course, trees. As many as possible. Did you know that the USDA reports that one well-positioned shade tree can equal the cooling effects of five air conditioners?
I just cannot wrap my head around the strange concept that a manicured lawn enhances the appearance of your property more than other, more nature-inspired landscaping. But there it was, staring at me from my monitor: the definitive proof of this obsessive cultural phenomenon. An ad. It read something like this: "Have your lawn maintenance costs risen too high? If you are fed up with all that mowing and watering, call us for a free consultation! Our solution will provide your property with an enhanced appearance as well as cutting your costs significantly. Call today to inquire about our high quality synthetic grass! " Egad! Is it just me, or what?
Around here, in my little corner of the World, my husband is the self-appointed, long-suffering, sole custodian of THE LAWN. I have more useful things to do, like meditating in my muskoka chair. Or walking in the woods. Or rock hunting in the vacant lot next door. Or laundry.
Some of us (I) could never be bothered to cut, clip, trim, aerate, mulch, weed and feed and otherwise coddle and fret over our expansive acre of mixed woods and greens, with a good portion of clover, interspersed with the occasional sodded spot. However, in quasi-keeping with our neighbourhood's well-meaning but wasteful elevated horticultural standards, my misguided lawn devotee refuses to quit! I beg him: Let it go! If you truly love it, set it free! Move on with your life! But no: he feels socially obligated to (somewhat) regularly fire up the dreaded smelly pollution-spewing riding mower, haul out the gigantic evil-sounding shoulder holstered 100 pound whipper-slasher, and the squeaky wheeled push-and-spin feeder, as well as the long-handled telescopic saw pruner.
Even if he is already swamped in a backwash of a quazillion accumulated more pressing chores. ALL is postponed because...THE LAWN beckons! THE LAWN is hungry/thirsty! THE LAWN requires a haircut to remain fashionable! THE LAWN is upset with all those pesky little daisies and dandelions sprouting here, there and everywhere! I wonder when, exactly, did the court convene to decree that the bright and cheerful dandelion is a weed? At least you can make wine or salad with dandelions! I dare you to try serving your lawn cuttings for lunch tomorrow...
Not having obtained the desired stellar results so far in my endeavour to endear all home-owners in my acquaintance to my cause, (a few continue to imitate the ostrich when it comes to environmental issues), I have decided to quit re-hashing Al Gore et al., and change my tack. Instead, I will try to more subtly expose the gist of one of my main points: the time factor. All that time - and energy – which could be more happily spent on more pleasant activities.
To quote Andy Rooney: "Life is like a roll of toilet paper: the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes."
Allow me to illustrate by means of a simple exercise borrowed from a grey-haired, white-mustachioed gnome-like being, who wisely explains the conscious use one should make of one's life span with the following analogy (also shnagged from Andy Rooney, in all probability): Unroll a measuring tape to 75 or 80 inches, representing an average life expectancy. Re-wind the portion you have already "lived", in my case, shorten it by 55 inches/years. Examine closely the remaining short bit, and ask yourself: How can I most enjoy this last fraction of time left for me to live life on this planet? If you choose to spend an inordinate amount of that time tending to the demands of useless but (questionably) aesthetically-pleasing blades of grass, then so be it. But others may re-consider...
Many long maligned so-called weeds are attractive, perfectly harmless and sometimes quite useful members of the plant world, just as deserving of a special place in our home environment as grass! Personally, I have observed that grass can be a very persistent nuisance, insisting on insinuating itself even where it is squarely uninvited. If you let it, it will take over nature wherever it can, unaccepting of the possibility that a homeowner may choose wild-flowers, or ivy or dogwood, or - nothing - in its stead. Grass can indeed become the weed! In fact, I often see grass as the unwelcome invader: in our rock gardens, graveled landscaping, flower beds, vegetable patches, driveway cracks and sandy beaches. Did you know that grass can thrive, unsolicited, in a full three-foot depth of beach sand? Yes, it can. I have seen it with my own eyes. As a matter of fact, right now, as we speak, I'm sitting here watching it grow.
Madeleine,
a.k.a. MadMad
a.k.a. MadAgainstTheWorld(AndHappilyEnjoyingEveryMinuteOfItAsMuchAsHumanlyPossible)
"A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule." ~Michael Pollan
The gifts of February in Northern Michigan come in tiny, tiny packages: a momentary sight of a deer before she heads back down to the creek where the snow is less deep and the temperatures are just a little warmer; a few snow fleas, just a few, to remind me that there is, indeed, life within all this stillness; a few more seconds of light each day; a glimpse of the sun over the tree tops at the southern end of my property before it dips again below the tree line; a few minutes more each week when the sky is cloudless. The world around my home is locked up, frozen. So each tiny change feels monumental. 
